Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide For Savvy Girls Who Want To Stop Eating Crap And Start Looking Fabulous! (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Funny, at first. I took the crass method of delivery to be humorous, in-your-face, no-holds-barred satire. The writing style reminded me of the website "Smart Bitches Love Trashy Books." The authors' outline ingredients--approved by the FDA--in our food that are known (KNOWN!) to be bad for us. Case in point, Aspartame--the sweetener in some diet sodas--turns into formaldehyde inside our bodies. How gross is that? Did you know Aspartame was denied approval 8 times? Founder of Aspartame, G.D. Searle, continued to push it overlooking reports from neuroscientists and researchers that stated it was dangerous. In 1996 the corrupt FDA approved it for consumption--without restrictions--knowing there are 92 different symptoms that result from ingesting Aspartame. There are Aspartame Victim Support Groups because so many have been sickened from it. Here are a few of the effects: memory loss, nerve cell damage, migraines, reproductive disorders, mental confusion, brain lesions, blindness, joint pain, Alzheimer's, bloating, nervous system disorders, hair loss, food cravings and weight gain. Hold on! Aspartame is also in NutraSweet and Equal! What about Splenda? The FDA says it is safe for us because it is 98% pure. The FDA acknowledges that the remaining 2% contain small amounts of heavy metals like methonal and arsenic, but what they heck, eat up!This is all mentioned in Chapter 3, Sugar is the Devil. Frankly, I've read the same information in Suzanne Somers' "Breakthrough," Ray Kurzweil's "Fantastic Voyage" and a few other health books, but I had to read a whole lot of other data. I found Smart Bitches more direct, short and not "sugar" coated. The book is only 224 pages! I looked at it like a "cliff note" compared to other health books I've read, and this was done in a light-hearted (satirical) method. Smart Bitches talks about the United States farming methods, slaughterhouses, milk industry and the widespread corruption within our government to include the EPA, FDA, USDA, and Congress. They lay it out there in plain, simple terms calling the reader a dumb ass if a a person is aware of the harmful affects and continues to ignore it then is baffled when they are sick, unhealthy, overweight. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck....The authors' mention the widespread corruption in our school lunch programs. Non-profit organizations, parents, and other groups have been trying to get healthier school meals inside our schools, but the USDA is heavily "supported" by the meat and dairy industries, so those attempts have been thwarted from all angles. Did you know European countries won't accept our meat because of the crap we "allow" to go into it? We don't feed our cows ground up cows anymore, but it is okay to feed our calves the blood of dead cows, per the USDA. How messed up is that?The book doesn't just beat up the meat and dairy industry. They go into the produce sections, too. Pesticides that have been banned for use INSIDE the U.S. are being sold for use OUTSIDE the U.S. (Mexico) and we are importing the results back into our stores, tables, and bodies. How messed up is that?We've all heard that Americans are over becoming antibiotic resistant due to overuse, but what is not mentioned (because the meat industry has very deep pockets) is that the USDA allows antibiotics to be administered to meat that we eat. Our meat has become contaminated and--page 45--mentions a link to eating "doctored beef" and urinary tract infections in women. Page 45 also provides a listing of what has been allowed in our meat. Shocking: BHC, DDT, HCB, just to name a few. Just so you know, BHC is 19 times more carcinogenic than DDT, HCB is 23 times more, etc. How messed up is that?Even the food pyramid was designed to get us to drink more milk and eat more beef that our bodies should be eating. Did you know that dairy cows that our hooked to milking machines are given treatments for infections that ensue and that is in our milk supply, too? Did you know that the Horizon (organic) milk is not as safe to drink as is labeled? It's inside this book.The dairy and meat industry is trying to tap into the organic market. Just because something is labeled USDA Organic doesn't mean it is. The USDA has approved labeling foods organic with a lot of loop holes. Look for certified organic products from non-profit organizations. The book provides a list!The authors' are not on a sanctimonious high horse. Later in the book, they acknowledged that they, too, drink a beer here and there or have moments of weakness and parts of their bodies are NOT perfect. They provided information to allow us (consumers, moms, wives, husbands, fathers) to be more informed consumers. They stress--repeatedly--to read ingredient labels, trust no one (the FDA, USDA, Congress). They provide a list of foods safe to consume, offer advice for substitutes for sugar and other products, etc. I skipped over their recommended meals because it seemed dumb. They have a section on vitamins, but the book needs to be updated because their data on Vitamin D is obsolete (15 minutes of sunshine is all they say!), they talk about the Bush Administration, so yeah, the book is getting "dated," but there is still a lot of good information packed between these pages. Finally, Chapter 6, You Are What You Eat, the humor stopped and the book broke open the doors inside slaughterhouses, chicken and dairy farms. It was heartbreaking. In the United States, Congress implemented the "Humane Slaughter Act" but it excluded chickens and turkeys. Why? Clearly, there is evidence that people need to be held accountable for their actions. The authors' quote a book Slaughterhouse by Gail Eisnitz, the chief investigator for the Humane Farming Association, who interviewed workers in the U.S. Here are a few quotes that begin on page 69 in Smart Bitches :"I seen them take those stunners--they're about as long as a yard stick--and shove it up the hog's ass...they do it with cows, too...And their ear, their eyes, down their throat...They'll be squealing and they'll just shove it right down there.""Hogs get stressed out pretty easy. If you prod them too much they have heart attacks. If you get a hog in a chute that's had the shit prodded out of him and has a heart attack or refuses to move, you take a meat hook and hook it into his bunghole (anus). You're dragging these hogs alive, and a lot of times the meat hook rips out of the bunghole. I've seen hams--thighs--completely ripped open. I've also seen intestines come out. If the hog collapses near the front of the chute, you shove the meat hook into his cheek and drag him forward.""Or in their mouth. The roof of their mouth. And they're still alive.""Pigs on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them--beat them to death with a pipe.""These hogs get up to the scalding tank, hit the water and start screaming and kicking. Sometimes they thrash so much they kick water out of the tank....Sooner or later they drown. There's a rotating arm that pushes them under, no chance for them to get out. I'm not sure if they burn to death before they drown, but it takes them a couple of minutes to stop thrashing.""Sometimes I grab it (a hog) by the ear and stick it right through they eye. I'm not just taking its eye out, I'll go all the way to the hilt, right up through the brain, and wiggle the knife.""Only you don't just kill it, you go in hard, push hard, blow the windpipe, make it drown in its own blood. Split its nose. A live hog would be running around the pit. It would just be looking up at me and I'd be sticking, and I would just take my knife and--cut its eye out while it was just sitting there. And this hog would just scream.""I could tell you horror stories...about cattle getting their heads stuck under the gate guards, and the only way you can get it out is to cut their heads off while they're still alive.""He'll kick them (hogs), fork them, use anything he can get his hands on. He's already broken three pitchforks so far this year, just jabbing them. He doesn't care if he hits the eyes, head, butt. He jabs them so hard he busts the wooden handles. And he clubs them over and the back.""I've seen live animals shackled, hoisted, stuck, and skinned. Too many to count, too many to remember,. It's just a process that's continually there. I've seen shackled beef looking around before they've been stuck. I've seen hogs (that are supposed to be lying down) on the bleeding conveyor get up after they've been stuck. I've seen hogs in the scalding tub trying to swim.""I seen guys take broomsticks and stick it up the cow's behind, screwing them with a broom.""I've drug cows till their bones start breaking, while they were still alive. Bringing them around the corner and they get stuck up in the doorway, just pull them till their hide be ripped, till the blood just drip on the steel and concrete. Breaking their legs....And the cow be crying with its tongue stuck out. They pull him till his neck just pop.""One time I took my knife--it's sharp enough--and I sliced off the end of a hog's nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left in my hand--I was wearing a rubber glove--and I stuck the salt right up the hog's ass. The poor hog didn't know whether to shit or go blind.""Nobody knows who's responsible for correcting animal abuse at the plant. The USDA does zilch."
I liked the spirit of this book. Paying attention to food labels, eating only when you're really hungry, and bulking up on fruits and vegetables are all great ideas, echoed by many nutritionists. The authors think that you should be vegan. I wanted to love this book, but I couldn't, because I found the following things wrong with it:-Shoddy science. They compare the raw numbers of people who have osteoporosis between America and Africa, for example. They say that humans didn't actually evolve to be omnivores. Stuff like this makes me lack faith in anything else they say.-Trying to get people to be vegan by using detailed descriptions of slaughterhouses just doesn't work. We all read The Jungle in high school and were vegetarians for a week, then went back to our evil ways. What's more, if there WERE a humane way to slaughter animals, would the authors suddenly eat meat? I doubt it. Use scientific evidence instead - which they also try to do, but I'm not sure I can believe (see above).-Speaking of meat, there's no talk of fish. Are fish caught in inhumane nets? Maybe in the next book.-A chapter on fiber where you throw in every graphic term for poop you can think of, doesn't actually teach readers a damn thing about fiber. -Saying that dairy and processed foods don't make you feel good in any way is ridiculous. Maybe I need to make them a plate of my brownies.-The section on fasting is relatively responsbile but saying, "the more fasting the better," definitely not responsbile.-There is no mention of cooking. They say not to eat processed foods and yet, of the foods they recommend, many of them are just vegan forms of frozen bugers or patties. If they care about nutrition, they could at least mention that it's good to cook for yourself.-There is no mention of exercise or fitness in this entire book. All the skinny bitches I know work really, really hard at it. Maybe giving up your processed food and cheese fix will drop you a few pounds, but if you want to be healthy you have to combine that new lease on eating with some moving around. If this were just a diet book I'd forgive it, but it reads like a lifestyle book, and the omission of exercise is just inexcusable. Look at these girls. You think they look like that just from substituting soy cheese? Hardly.Overall I like it; we need to get fired up about nutrition. They expose a lot about the food industry that citizens should know. It has me changing a few habits and I appreciate that. I just wish it were a little less sloppy. The sassy tone and cursing only gets you so far - it doesn't hide your content mistakes.
What do You think about Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide For Savvy Girls Who Want To Stop Eating Crap And Start Looking Fabulous! (2005)?
back away from the ice cream! Drop your hands and move away from the "moose knuckle bear fudge" !! I repeat, BACK THE HELL OFF!HEY! Put down that second bag of chips! You don't need it! Hell, you didn't need the first bag, either. Let's go for a nice brisk walk, eh?Do NOT stop at the drive thru! All Ronald McDonald wants to give you is a huge crapper and maybe a nice "Cardiac Surprise"! Step on the gas, bitch! Be gone!I imagine this book to be full of these little bits o' wisdom.R.I.P. common sense. I will miss you!
—Books Ring Mah Bell
Well! I bought this book based on the reviews at amazon.com about a year ago. I wanted to preview it and possibly pass it along to my non-vegan friends if it turned out to be any good. Well, I flipped through it when it got here and was unimpressed and never read it.Then I saw an article in the PCRM (Physician's Commmittee for Responsible Medicine) magazine, saying that one of the Skinny Bitches was giving talks to White House staffers in Washington, and it really put a favorable spin on the book. So I decided to give it another try. This time instead of flipping through, I started at the first page and read the book cover to cover! It was great! I loved the drill-sargeant attitude! I'm already vegan, but you know what, it totally motivated me to eat better. I've got 10 to 15 pounds I'd like to kick to the curb. The Skinny Bitches gave me the ammo I need to tell those extra pounds where to shove it!I think this is a great book for anybody, whether you're vegan or not. It's aimed at women, so they talk about PMS and cramps, etc., but other than that, it's great advice for anybody ... I wonder if I can get my boyfriend to read it. Oh, I forgot, it wouldn't be good if you are offended by "cuss words." I'm not into a lot of swearing in real life, but somehow the way it was written here it seemed very appropriate. In fact, I got a real kick out of the way they tried to cuss and swear us into shape. I loved it.Also, this was a SUPER-FAST read. I started it on Saturday and finished it on Sunday, and I was just reading it in between all my other activities.And for those who think it's too expensive to eat vegan?I don't buy it.As an example:$4.79 - 2 pounds Organic Brown Rice(19 servings)$3.50 - 2 pounds Organic Black-Eyed Peas$10.00 - 2 pounds organic green salad from Farmer's Market$5.00 - Ingredients for homemade cornbreadFor about $25 you can serve 19 people, which is about $1.30 per meal.Organic, vegan, delicious!
—Rachel
I only read this book(or tried to read this book) because my best friend said it was AMAZING! I can't even begin to tell you how wrong she was. This book represents all that is wrong in the world of food. These two authors aren't teaching you how to eat right, they are teaching you to be anorexic (If you look at the sample menus they equate to aprroximately 700 calories/day-that is ridiculous!). The only reason this book got so much press was because Posh was photographed carrying it. The self proclaimed expert authors of this book are a former agent of a modelling company(who says she is a self taught expert) and a former model (who says she got her masters degree in holistic nutrition-when I looked it up it is from an unaccreditted school-would you take advice from a doctor who went to an unacreditted university?) They further the stereotype that in order to be happy you have to be a size 0. It is sad to me that woman look to this kind of book, where they talk down to you(ex."Perhaps you have a lumpy ass because you are preserving your fat cells with diet soda." and "If you'd drag your cankles to a health food store...") in order to find inspiration. This type of mentality does not lead to healty eating or healthy body image. Eat moderately, exercise, and the rest falls in to place. Don't listen to these pyscho girls who don't even have to education to be talking about these things. You want to learn about nutrition and how to lose weight? Go to a dietician and they will help you in a healthy way without calling you a fat ass.
—Michelle Cardel
